Immersive Museums: Interactive and Embodied Exhibitions | CTL3533

ALiVE tour

I am glad to have a chance to visit ALiVE , the Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment of City University of Hong Kong last Friday. In this tour, we experienced all the interactive installations such as T_Visionarium, PLACE-Hampi, UNMAKEABLELOVE and so on. They are amazing as they are powerful installations in such a large scale and exquisite 3D images.

In various installation, I think reconfiguring the CAVE and PLACE-Hampi are the two that shocking me the most. Firstly, the PLACE-Hampi involving a circular big screen and a driver system at the pivot of the screen. We need to “drive” the machine up on a platform in order to travel around the world of Indian culture. It is a system that following the will of audiences and give certain information. I tried to drive and it is fun! Meanwhile, I found that the recording is sophisticated, it is a new experience for me.

Besides, when I stepped in “reconfiguring the CAVE”, I got frightened as the 3D world is so real! Although I am not very clear about the content of the art piece, but everytime when people modified the wooden puppet inside the digitalized platform, the virtual environment changed. I think the shocking feeling is undoubtedly generated by “participating in the virtual environment”. When we are not just an audience sitting in front of the screen, 3D visual is covering your world, in other words, when you are physically walking or staying on the screen, conceptual elements or virtual elements are physically affecting you. This is really great idea.

I got different experiences after this tour and I think now I would really expecting our project’s result.